Israeli Strike Kills Hamas Commander

Smoke rises over the Gaza Strip late Wednesday, above, as Israel launched what it said were attacks against militant sites.
Reuters

By

Joshua Mitnick and

Charles Levinson

Updated Nov. 15, 2012 3:04 a.m. ET

TEL AVIV—Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with artillery shells and about 20 airstrikes on Wednesday, killing Hamas's top military commander and at least seven other people in the most violent assault on the coastal territory in four years.

The Israeli strikes came in retaliation to a wave of missile attacks on Israeli territory in recent days from the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants responded Wednesday by firing dozens of rockets at nearby Israeli communities. Hamas leaders called the attack an act of war and Hamas's armed wing warned on its website that Israel had "opened the gates of hell," raising fears that the fighting could escalate into full-blown war.

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The Gaza assault thrusts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into the region's spotlight for the first time since Arab Spring uprisings swept the region nearly two years ago. Since the last Israeli-Hamas war ended in 2009, several of the Middle East's core relationships have fundamentally changed. An Islamist government has come to power in Egypt, on Israel's southern border. To the east, Syria is embroiled in war.

The resurgent violence in Israel stands as an early test of how those historic changes will impact and reshape a conflict that has in many ways defined the region's politics for much of the past century. Among the lingering questions are whether democratically elected Islamic leaning governments will chart a different course than their predecessors in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another is how Hamas's break with Syria's regime, long its chief regional patron, will impact its policies.

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Later Wednesday, people in Gaza City surveyed the attack site.
Associated Press

Video

Israeli airstrikes killed Hamas's top military commander and targeted numerous militant sites in the Gaza Strip, leaving at least six others dead in the largest offensive against the Palestinians in four years. Josh Mitnick has details on The News Hub.

A video released by the Israeli Defense Force on Wednesday shows an air strike on Hamas in Gaza City that it says killed Ahmed Jabari, the commander of the Hamas military wing in Gaza. Israeli and Hamas officials confirmed Mr. Jabari was killed in the attack by the Israel Air Force.

Egypt's Islamist-led government, which controls Gaza's southern border and has close ties to Hamas, angrily denounced the Israeli offensive and recalled its ambassador for the first time since 2000. The Muslim Brotherhood called on Egyptian President
Mohammed Morsi
to "review'' Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of regional stability.

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on the attacks late Wednesday. While diplomats said there was agreement the violence should stop, the council came to no decision.

Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
said the Israeli offensive would continue and could yet expand if Palestinian militants keep firing rockets at Israel. "If necessary, the military is prepared to widen the operation," he said in a televised address. "We won't accept a situation in which Israeli civilians are threatened by the terror of rocket fire."

Washington condemned Hamas's recent attacks on southern Israel. "We support Israel's right to defend itself, and we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

President
Barack Obama
spoke Wednesday with Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Morsi about the violence, "given Egypt's central role in preserving regional security," the White House said. Mr. Obama and Mr. Morsi "agreed on the importance of working to de-escalate the situation as quickly as possible and agreed to stay in close touch in the days ahead."

Wednesday's assault began with an airstrike in the heart of Gaza City at around 4 p.m. that incinerated the Kia sedan carrying
Ahmed Jabari,
commander of Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, and his assistant, killing both men.

Israel's military quickly released aerial video footage of what it said was the strike on Mr. Jabari, which showed a vehicle driving through a narrow street followed by a powerful explosion. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack on Twitter. Hamas confirmed Mr. Jabari had been killed.

As the top commander of Hamas's armed wing, Mr. Jabari was arguably Gaza's most powerful man and long one of Israel's most hated foes. Israel accuses him of ordering dozens of terrorist attacks and overseeing the kidnapping and five-year captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. He is the highest-ranking Hamas officials assassinated by Israel since the 2004 assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

Israeli airstrikes continued into the night. The IDF said its initial salvos targeted Gazan militants' long-range rocket arsenals that can reach Tel Aviv's southern suburbs. Later Wednesday evening, Israeli naval vessels joined the assault with artillery shells, the IDF said.

Israel's army said it was prepared to order ground troops into Gaza if needed, and Israel television said the army had issued call-up orders to reservists.

"This will not be wham, bam and we're finished,'' Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. "We are at the beginning of the incident, not at the end."

Palestinian rocket-launch squads retaliated with a barrage of rockets shot toward southern Israeli cities, with at least one landing in Beersheba, the biggest city in southern Israel, according to Israel television reports. Israel's army reported that more than 30 rockets had landed in a string of cities and towns near Gaza and that about 25 more were intercepted by Israel's newly deployed Iron Dome missile-defense system.

In Gaza, Hamas evacuated government buildings and compounds and sealed off the streets around them. Gazan health officials said late Wednesday that at least eight people had been killed in the Israeli strikes, including two young children, with another 50 wounded in the assault. They said they expected both figures, which couldn't be independently confirmed, to rise before morning. There were no reported casualties on the Israeli side.

Israel's attack, which its army code named "Pillar of Defense," came after several days of escalating back-and-forth hostilities in which Gaza militants fired dozens of rockets and mortars at southern Israel and struck an Israeli army jeep with an anti-tank rocket.

ENLARGE

Emergency services extinguish the destroyed car of Ahmed Jabari, the commander of the military wing of Gaza's Hamas rulers.
European Pressphoto Agency

Smaller militant factions claimed credit for most of the attacks against Israel. But in a rare break with the restraint it has shown in recent years, Hamas said that it, too, had launched some of the recent attacks.

The attacks also cast new questions over a separate, controversial Palestinian effort to gain international diplomatic recognition.

Hamas's rival Palestinian Fatah Party—which controls the West Bank and is led by President
Mahmoud Abbas
—is readying a push for recognition at the U.N. later this month. Some in Hamas fear that Mr. Abbas's diplomatic push could boost Palestinian support for Fatah by making it appear that Mr. Abbas is doing more than Hamas to confront Israel.

The Palestinian request would give the Palestinian Authority access to criminal courts, among other things. It has been vigorously opposed by Israel and the U.S., which characterize it as a unilateral effort at recognition that sidesteps the continuing peace process.

Just hours before the strikes in Gaza, Israeli Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman
called Mr. Abbas's request for the vote "diplomatic terror." He released a position paper calling to topple Mr. Abbas and dismantle the Palestinian Authority if he pressed ahead at the U.N., a move that would effectively undo the 19-year-old Oslo Peace Accords.

Mr. Lieberman's comments on Wednesday—along with similarly combative recent statements by Finance Minister
Yuval Steinitz
that the U.N. bid represents a "strategic threat" to Israel—suggest that Mr. Netanyahu's government is prepared to go to the mat to stop the Palestinian U.N. push, especially coming, as it does, in the midst of an Israeli election campaign.

Israel is counting on Washington's considerable diplomatic heft to sway key European countries to oppose the bid and to convince Mr. Abbas to back down. But the Israeli offensive on Gaza is certain to complicate U.S. efforts. A climbdown by Mr. Abbas in the wake of Israel's lethal assault on Gaza would doom the Palestinian leader's already weak domestic support.

The offensive has the potential to stir up sympathy for the bid in some European capitals. The Palestinians are expected to easily muster the majority needed to get U.N. approval, but without the backing of key European powers, the victory could prove pyrrhic.

Hamas's decision to step up attacks against Israel in recent days may also be a product of internal rifts, according to Gaza residents close to the movement. Many in Hamas's militant wing are frustrated with the movement's political leadership, fearing they are losing popular support by allowing corruption to seep back into Gaza's governance and refusing to confront Israel, these people said.

Mr. Netanyahu is facing domestic political considerations of his own ahead of the Jan. 22 parliamentary vote that could see him re-elected.

The recent spate of rocket attacks had kicked up criticism in Israel that Gaza militants were no longer deterred by Israel. Those charges hit at the core of Mr. Netanyahu's electoral strength in the eyes of many Israeli voters, that he is the most capable guardian of Israel's security. In spite of Mr. Netanyahu's reputation as a hawk, the Gaza offensive is the most extensive military operation he has ordered.

The flareup in Gaza is also an early test for how Egypt's new Islamist-led government will navigate a conflict has long frustrated Arab governments. If it fails to throw its full support behind the Palestinians in Gaza, it risks losing domestic support. But by wading too deeply into the fray, it risks entangling itself in a seemingly endless conflict and jeopardizing a peace treaty that has been at the heart of Egypt's national security and foreign policy for over three decades.

Cairo's recall of its ambassador reflects pressure on Egyptian President Morsi to take a harder line toward Israel than did his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

—Matt Bradley in Cairo, Joe Lauria at the U.N. and Carol E. Lee in Washington contributed to this article.

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